144 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



cephalus) — all these and other facts and terms of importance 

 to the naturalist were quite unknown to the whaleman. His 

 business, after all, was not to observe, describe, and classify, 

 but to kill whales, to secure a cargo of oil and whalebone. 



His activities on the whaling grounds, however, necessarily- 

 taught him some of the more elementary facts concerning 

 structure and function. Whales are distinguished among 

 mammals by the huge, fish-like bodyj by the reduction of the 

 fore-limbs to the form of fins and the total absence of ex- 

 ternally visible hind-limbs j by the presence of a thick layer of 

 fat (blubber) beneath the skin, in order to retain the heat of 

 the body J by the small eyes and earsj by the large cavities 

 filled with oil; and by the peculiar breathing apparatus, which 

 makes it possible to inhale and exhale steadily for some con- 

 secutive minutes and then to remain under water for periods 

 ranging from thirty to sixty minutes. 



But perhaps the most striking characteristic is that of sizej 

 for in length a full-grown whale ranges from thirty-five to 

 eighty feet and even more. The following measurements of 

 a sixty-barrel sperm whale (the whalemen always described 

 the size of an animal in terms of the number of barrels of oil 

 which it yielded) will convey some concept of the huge bulk of 

 these largest of living creatures: length, sixty feetj circum- 

 ference of largest part of body, twenty- four feetj length of 

 jaw-bone, fourteen feetj distance from one point of tail to 

 the other, seven feetj length of each fin, three feet six inches j 

 thickness of blubber, five to nine inches 3 and number of teeth, 

 forty-six.^ This is only a good average size j for eighty-barrel 

 sperm whales are not infrequent, and occasionally even larger 

 ones are found. 



The sperm whale, the most important representative of the 

 Odontoceti, has a long, narrow lower jaw containing forty to 

 fifty great teeth which fit into sockets in the upper jaw. This 

 arrangement is admirably adapted to tearing and devouring its 

 favorite food, the squid or octopus. The Mystacoceti, or 

 Whalebone Whales, on the other hand, feed upon minute 

 animalculse which float on the surface of the sea in myriad 

 masses commonly known as brit. The huge upper jaws are 



1 Figures taken from Macy, Obed, "History of Nantucket," p. 229. 



